Three workers at a Simmons Prepared Foods plant inhaled a toxic cloud of anhydrous ammonia on July 1, 2023, because their employer did not bother to install a lock-out/tag-out mechanism that actually stayed stuck to the equipment.

Investigative Report  |  EPA Enforcement  |  Van Buren, Arkansas  |  July 2024

Who Pays When Simmons Prepared Foods Cuts Corners?

Workers. Not Shareholders.

Simmons Prepared Foods, Inc. runs a chicken further-processing plant in Van Buren, Arkansas. Every year, that plant churns out approximately 110 million pounds of fully cooked chicken products. The refrigeration system keeping all that chicken cold runs on anhydrous ammonia, a gas so dangerous the federal government requires every facility storing it above 10,000 pounds to maintain an entire Risk Management Program dedicated to preventing its accidental release.

Simmons stored well above that 10,000-pound threshold. The EPA says so. The company’s own Risk Management Plan confirms it. And on July 1, 2023, the system failed anyway, releasing 1,600 pounds of anhydrous ammonia directly into the working environment, exposing three employees to a substance that the federal government explicitly classifies as one that “may reasonably be anticipated to cause death, injury, or serious adverse effects to human health or the environment.”

When the EPA investigated, what they found was not a freak accident or a sophisticated equipment failure. They found a company that had simply skipped the basics: a robust lock-out/tag-out mechanism that prevents equipment from being accidentally activated during maintenance. This is not experimental safety technology. This is one of the oldest and most fundamental workplace safety tools in existence. Simmons did not have it working properly.

The Scope of the Operation Makes the Negligence Worse

Simmons Prepared Foods is not a small family business operating on thin margins. The Van Buren facility alone operates three production lines producing 110 million pounds of product annually. This is a high-volume, high-revenue industrial operation with the resources to do safety correctly. The decision not to have a properly functioning lock-out/tag-out system was not a resource problem. It was a priority problem.

Anhydrous ammonia at industrial concentrations is immediately dangerous to life and health. Exposure causes severe respiratory damage, chemical burns to the eyes, skin, and lungs, and at sufficient concentrations, death. The federal threshold quantity of 10,000 pounds exists precisely because a release of that chemical in an industrial setting is a mass-casualty event waiting to happen. Simmons held far more than the threshold and treated the safety obligations that came with it as a bureaucratic checkbox.

The Non-Financial Ledger

The EPA’s Administrative Order on Consent runs fifteen pages. It contains the company’s address, the regulatory citations, the penalty schedule, the mailing address for fine checks, and detailed definitions of legal terms. What it does not contain is the names of the three workers who were exposed to a 1,600-pound ammonia release on July 1, 2023. They are referred to collectively, once, as “three (3) employees.” That is the full extent of their presence in this document.

Anhydrous ammonia exposure is not a minor workplace incident. At high concentrations, it destroys airway tissue. It burns the corneas. It causes pulmonary edema, meaning the lungs fill with fluid. Survivors of significant exposures can face permanent respiratory impairment, lasting sensitivity to airborne irritants, and documented psychological trauma including anxiety disorders associated with the acute terror of struggling to breathe. The three workers at Simmons’ Van Buren plant experienced whatever they experienced on July 1, 2023, and the document that is supposed to hold the company accountable does not even record whether they survived with their health intact.

The lock-out/tag-out procedure that Simmons failed to implement properly is a safety measure so basic it is taught in introductory industrial safety courses. Its entire purpose is to prevent a machine or system from being accidentally re-energized while a worker is in a position to be harmed by it. The absence of a “robust” version of this mechanism means, in plain language, that the tag warning workers not to activate equipment either fell off, was not properly placed, or was ignored because it was not secure enough to be taken seriously. Someone activated equipment they should not have activated, and three people paid for that with their bodies.

When the EPA issued this order, Simmons was not required to provide medical care records for the exposed workers, compensate them beyond whatever workers’ compensation the state of Arkansas mandated, or publicly disclose the severity of their injuries. The company was told to put a better sticker on its equipment and add the incident to its paperwork. Simmons also failed to report the accident in its required 5-Year Accident History Risk Management Plan until the EPA specifically ordered it to. That means the workers’ exposure event was, for months, functionally erased from the official record of what happens at that facility.

Legal Receipts

“On July 1, 2023, there was an incident at the Facility that resulted in an accidental release of 1,600 pounds of anhydrous ammonia and exposure to three (3) employees.” — EPA Findings of Fact, Administrative Order on Consent, paragraph 20

“At the time of the Incident, Respondent failed to use a robust tag-out/lock-out mechanism, which could have prevented the injury and release of 1,600 pounds of anhydrous ammonia.” — EPA Findings of Violation, Administrative Order on Consent, paragraph 32

“Respondent’s failure to develop and implement a safe work practice, pursuant to 40 C.F.R. § 68.69(d) as required, is a violation of Section 112(r)(7) of the CAA, 42 U.S.C. § 7412(r)(7).” — EPA Findings of Violation, Administrative Order on Consent, paragraph 33

“Respondent neither admits nor denies the EPA Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law and the EPA Findings of Violation.” — Other Terms and Conditions, Administrative Order on Consent, paragraph 47

“The objective of Section 112(r) is to prevent the accidental release and to minimize the consequences of any such release of any substance listed pursuant to Section 112(r)(3) of the CAA, or any other extremely hazardous substance.” — Statutory and Regulatory Background, Administrative Order on Consent, paragraph 5

The Paper Trail: A Timeline

Societal Impact Mapping

Public Health: Breathing in Profit Margins

Anhydrous ammonia is listed as a federally regulated substance specifically because its accidental release “may reasonably be anticipated to cause death, injury, or serious adverse effects to human health or the environment.” This is not a hypothetical classification. The 1,600 pounds released at the Van Buren facility on July 1, 2023, directly injured three workers. The concentration, duration of exposure, and resulting medical outcomes are not disclosed in the public record.

The 10,000-pound federal threshold for anhydrous ammonia exists because a large-scale release in a populated area constitutes a public health emergency, triggering evacuations and sheltering-in-place orders. The EPA’s accident history reporting requirements, which Simmons violated by failing to log this incident, exist precisely so that regulators can track patterns of chemical release events at facilities near communities. When Simmons failed to log this incident, it removed data that public health officials, emergency planners, and the surrounding Van Buren community depend on to understand the risks living near that plant.

Poultry processing plants overwhelmingly employ workers from low-income communities, including a significant proportion of immigrants and people of color who face structural barriers to reporting workplace injuries, seeking legal recourse, or changing employers. The three unnamed workers exposed to Simmons’ ammonia release belong to this demographic reality. The regulatory system that was supposed to protect them delivered a consent order requiring a better sticker on the equipment. No worker health outcome reporting. No community notification requirement. No independent medical monitoring.

Economic Inequality: The Price of a Worker’s Safety Is a Rounding Error

The penalty structure the EPA imposed tells you everything you need to know about who this system protects. For failing to comply with the consent order, Simmons faces $1,000 per violation per day ($365,000 per year — roughly equivalent to what a single mid-level corporate compliance officer earns) for the first 30 days, escalating to $2,500 per day ($912,500 per year — still less than many corporate bonus packages) after that. For a facility producing 110 million pounds of product annually, this penalty is structurally designed to be ignorable.

Compare that to the maximum theoretical penalty available under the Clean Air Act: up to $101,439 per day per violation ($37 million per year — enough to fund emergency medical care for an entire mid-sized town) in civil judicial enforcement. The EPA chose a consent order with no assessed penalty for the actual harm caused. Simmons pays nothing for the ammonia release itself. It pays nothing for the workers’ injuries. It pays nothing as a fine. It agrees to put a better tag on its equipment and update a form. That is the full accounting.

The workers who were exposed have, in all likelihood, returned to the same plant. Poultry processing is not a sector where workers have abundant outside options. The economic coercion that keeps low-wage workers in dangerous environments is the same coercion that keeps companies like Simmons from facing real consequences: the system knows these workers cannot afford to fight back, and it prices compliance accordingly.

The Fine That Means Nothing

What Now?

The Administrative Order on Consent identifies two Simmons Prepared Foods contacts for compliance correspondence:

• Bailey Nash — Simmons Prepared Foods (compliance contact, Bailey.Nash@simfoods.com)
• Nelson Jackson — Simmons Prepared Foods (compliance contact, Nelson.Jackson@simfoods.com)

Individuals beyond these two contacts identified in the source material are [REDACTED – Not in Source]. The full corporate leadership structure of Simmons Prepared Foods is not disclosed in this document.

Watchlist: The Bodies That Should Be Watching This Company

• EPA Region 6 Enforcement and Compliance Assurance Division — responsible for monitoring Simmons’ compliance with this order and all future Clean Air Act obligations at the Van Buren facility.
• OSHA — the Van Buren facility is subject to OSHA Process Safety Management standards (29 C.F.R. 1910.119). OSHA has independent authority to inspect and cite Simmons for the same lock-out/tag-out failures the EPA identified.
• The Arkansas Department of Labor and Licensing — state-level enforcement of workplace safety laws applicable to Simmons’ employees.
• The Arkansas Department of Health — has independent public health authority regarding chemical exposure events affecting workers and surrounding communities.

The Real Work Happens Outside the Courtroom

Regulatory agencies alone will not fix what happened in Van Buren. The three workers exposed on July 1, 2023, deserve advocates who are not bound by the bureaucratic limitations that allowed Simmons to walk away without admitting fault. Connect with the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW), which organizes poultry processing workers across the South and has fought for exactly the kind of safety enforcement that failed here. Support local mutual aid networks in Crawford County, Arkansas, that provide direct support to workers injured on the job. Pressure your congressional representatives to fully fund OSHA enforcement, particularly in the poultry processing sector, where chemical hazards and low-wage workers intersect every single day. The consent order expires. The workers’ lungs do not.